The Emperor of Evening Stars (The Bargainer, #3)

by Laura Thalassa

There are urchins more worthy of saving than the creature that rules our land.

Wrongs must be righted. A king must pay. And realms will fall for my vengeance.

She’s going to break me. I fell in love with this woman’s darkness, with her pain and vulnerability. That had been enough. But when she laughs—when she laughs, that’s when I realize I’m a ruined man.

Love is…not how I imagined it to be. I never anticipated these little gestures of kindness that she brings out in me. There’s something about them that disturbs me, like I’m losing a bit of my edge.

She looks at me like I’m her own personal salvation. Sweet thing, hasn’t she figured out by now that, though I rule the heavens, I’m hell wrapped in a man?

It’s holding her close when she cries because her pain is my own and the world won’t be right until it’s gone.

Cling to your humanity, Desmond!

watched me leave her, those are the illusion. Because the truth is, I have searched worlds for her, looked for her for centuries. I’ve held her a thousand times in my dreams, and I have died a thousand times upon waking.

“And mountains may rise and fall, and the sun might wither away, and the sea claim the land and swallow the sky. But you will always be mine. And the stars might fall from the heavens, and night might cloak the earth, but until darkness dies, I will always be yours.”